Death Whistles: know the scary intimidation accessories of aztec

The Aztecs used death whistles when they went to battle probably to scare opponents.

Although the Aztec civilization disappeared centuries ago, this culture left historical and archaeological records that allowed a lot of things to be discovered about it. We now know, for example, that the Aztecs built remarkable temples and cities, practiced sinister sacri fi ces, and were warriors beyond bloodthirsty.

We also know that the Aztecs lived in a society organized in a rigid class system and that all men were trained to war and the best were selected to integrate elite units.

In fact, these soldiers wore costumes for super elaborate battles whose purpose was to intimidate their enemies. And speaking of intimidation, the Aztecs had an advisory specifically for that purpose!

According to Reuben Westmaas of Curiosity website, as far as we know, the Aztecs used death whistles when they went to battle probably to scare opponents, as the noise of these instruments, as you can see later, seems with the sound of a zombie freaking out. Listen in the following demo (from 0:50 minute):

Although historians and archaeologists are not entirely sure of the role of death whistles during wars, as we have mentioned, researchers know for a fact that they were used for human sacrifice, since in the late 1990s the one of these rituals was discovered in a temple dedicated to Ehecatl, the wind god of the Aztecs in Tlatelolco, with one of these artifacts in hand.

Based on this finding, some scholars even suggested that the death whistles could be used to invoke the Aztec wind deity and that this would be the noise the instruments would produce: wind.

However, returning to the subject of war, even scientists not knowing for sure whether the whistles were used to frighten enemies or to conjure up gods to participate in battles, imagine only hearing hundreds of these whistles sounding at the same time and the noise coming from the middle of the dense forests of Central America! Who would not be intimidated?